Portraits & Profiles
“Beyond Borders: on Adolfo Kaminsky,” London Review of Books 16 February 2022
“Outcasts and Desperadoes,” on Richard Wright, London Review of Books, 7 October 2021
“Palestinianism,” on Edward Said, London Review of Books, 6 May 2021
“The Stanley Crouch I Knew,” New York Review of Books Daily, September 24 2020
“On Albert Memmi,” London Review of Books, August 2020
“An Invitation from Jeanne Lee,” New York Review of Books, June 2020
“Remembering Jean Daniel,” London Review of Books blog, February 24 2020
“My Life as a Child Chef,” New Yorker Magazine, November 25, 2019
“We are conquerors,” on David Ben-Gurion, London Review of Books, 24 October 20919
“Who Does That For Anyone?” on Jean-Pierre Melville, London Review of Books, 20 June 2019
"The Mythologies of Roland Barthes," New York Review of Books, June 7 2018
"No Direction Home, l'itinéraire de Frantz Fanon," Vacarme, Summer and Fall, 2017
"The Ethereal Genius of Craig Taborn," The New York Times Magazine, June 25, 2017
"Where Life is Seized: Frantz Fanon's Revolution"
London Review of Books, January 2017
"The Fierce Courage of Nina Simone"
The New York Review of Books, 2016
"Kamasi Washington's Giant Step"
The New York Times Magazine, 2016
"Drawing Blood," on Riad Sattouf
The New Yorker, 2015
"Diary," on Ornette Coleman
London Review of Books, 2015
"Stranger Still," on Kamel Daoud
The New York Times Magazine, 2015
"Colombey-Les-Deux-Mosquées," on Michel Houellebecq
London Review of Books, 2015
"West End Boy," on Anders Breivik
London Review of Books, 2014
"At the Crime Scene," on Alain Robbe-Grillet
London Review of Books, 2014
"Writers or Missionaries?", a reporter's memoir
The Nation, 2014
"Patrick Seale: A Remembrance"
Middle East Research and Information Project, 2014
"A Little Feu de Joie", on Khomeini and the Iranian Revolution
London Review of Books, 2013
"The Beautiful Sounds of Jimi Hendrix"
New York Review of Books, 2014
"Bird!" on Charlie Parker
New York Review of Books, 2013
"An Argument With Instruments: On Charles Mingus"
The Nation, 2013
"Black, not Noir," on Sonallah Ibrahim
London Review of Books, 2013
"Not In the Mood," on Jacques Derrida
London Review of Books, 2012
"Nothing he hasn't done, nowhere he hasn't been," on Claude Lanzmann
London Review of Books, 2012
"Jottings, Scraps and Doodles," on Claude Lévi-Strauss
London Review of Books, 2011
"Desire Was Everywhere," on Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari
London Review of Books, 2010
"Prophecy and Deliverance: Reading Sadik al-Azm in an Age of Revolution," Jadaliyya, 2011
"Tony Judt," a remembrance
London Review of Books, 2010
"Wanting to Be Something Else," on Orhan Pamuk
London Review of Books, 2010
"Mishal's Luck," on Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal
London Review of Books, 2009
"Laptop Jihadi," on Al-Qaida theorist Abu Musab al-Suri
London Review of Books, 2008
"Invisible Walls," on the Israeli leftist Michel Warschawski
London Review of Books, 2006
"The Jewish Question," on Jean Daniel
New York Review of Books, 2005
"One Big Murder Mystery," on the Algerian novelist Yasmina Khadra
London Review of Books, 2004
"Robert Frank,"
From the anthology American Rebels, 2004
"The Perils of Living Too Long," on Grachan Moncur
The New York Times, 2003
"The Native Informant," on Fouad Ajami
The Nation, 2003
"An Arab Gadfly With a Memorable Bite," on Mohammed Harbi
The New York Times, 2003
"An Arab Poet Who Dares to Differ," on Adonis
The New York Times Magazine, 2002
"Okwui Enwezor's Really Big Show"
The New York Times Magazine, 2002
"Glenn Loury's About Face"
The New York Times Magazine, 2002
"A Poet's Palestine as a Metaphor," on Mahmoud Darwish
The New York Times, 2001
"The Thernstroms in Black and White,"
on Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom
The American Prospect, 2001
"Remembering Joe Wood"
Dissent, 1999 (behind paywall)
"A Jazz Pianist With a Brahmsian Bent," on Brad Mehldau
The New York Times, 1999
"A Maestro Of Esoteric Invention Becomes Accessible,"
on Roscoe Mitchell
The New York Times, 1999
"An American In Paris, Painting With a Saxophone," on Steve Lacy
The New York Times, 1999
Adrian Piper
Lingua Franca, 1998
(not online)
"Through His Hands, the Healing Power of Rhythm," on Leon Parker
The New York Times, 1998
"The American Earthquake: Mike Davis and the Politics of Disaster"
Lingua Franca, 1997